Centennial College

Graduate Certificate Program

Project Management
Business Communications I
BUSN 732-006
Prof. Sylvia Vrh-Zoldos

SNAPCHAT
AND ITS I NNOVATIVE

C ONCEPT

Writing Assignment #1
Submitted by:
Nelson Sauer - 300866173

April 4, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................3
COMPANY FOUNDERS AND HISTORY OF SNAPCHAT .................................................................3
EVAN SPIEGEL CO-FOUNDER AND CEO .................................................................................................3
BOBBY MURPHY CO-FOUNDER AND CTO .............................................................................................3
COMPANY HISTORY ...................................................................................................................................4
EXAMPLE OF HOW THE APPLICATION HAS EVOLVED .............................................................4
1.

THE BASICS FEATURES ......................................................................................................................4

2.

GEOFILTERS ......................................................................................................................................5

3.

EMOJI ................................................................................................................................................5

4.

SELFIE MASKS ...................................................................................................................................5

5.

ADVERTISING-FOCUSED DISCOVER ...............................................................................................5

6.

SPEED MODIFIERS..............................................................................................................................5

COMPANY POSITION IN THE MARKET ............................................................................................6

SUCCESSES .................................................................................................................................................6
USERS AS MEASURE ..................................................................................................................................6
THE VALUE OF VANISHING MESSAGES FOR COMPANIES .........................................................................6
THE FINANCIAL ASPECT ............................................................................................................................6
CHALLENGES ............................................................................................................................................7
PRIVACY AND SECURITY POLICIES ............................................................................................................7
SATISFYING THE USERS .............................................................................................................................7
PREDICTION OF FUTURE POTENTIAL .............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Established in 2011 (Colao, 2012), Snapchat is an American-based company with an innovative
reputation. The founders, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, recognized the market did not have
an app which allowed users the freedom of sharing content (Colao, 2014). This report is based on
information gathered in written articles from Snapchat Blog, Mashable, CEWE Photoshop,
TechCrunch, and Forbes websites. To gain an understanding of the foundation of the company
the report will be analyzing the history, evolution, marketing strategies, challenges, and
prediction of the future.

COMPANY FOUNDERS AND HISTORY OF SNAPCHAT

Evan Spiegel Co-Founder and CEO
Evan Spiegel was a product design student at Stanford University in California when he
proposed the Snapchat as a final project class (Colao, 2012). The concept of Snapchat began
from an insight when talking with his friend Reggie Brown, which he sent a picture to someone
that he wished he had not sent (Colao, 2014). At that moment Spiegel realized the lack of
technological apps to protect user freedom, which resulted in a project to create an app that helps
to protect the user freedom; hence, Snapchat was born. When Snapchat began earning money, he
dropped out of the class Stanford (Colao, 2014).

Bobby Murphy Co-Founder and CTO

Bobby Murphy, also a Stanford student, graduated in mathematics and computational science at
Stanford University. Before Snapchat, he was involved in his own project called Future
Freshman, a solution which supports the college admission process through a helpline dedicated,

which Evan Spiegel worked with him. After his project fail, he joined in the Spiegels idea about
Snapchat. (Success Story, n.d.) Today is a Co-founder and CTO and at Snapchat. (Ang, 2014)

Company History
Snapchat was created when, Co-founder Evan Spiegel found inspiration from his long-time
friend Reggie Brown, who complained about a photo he wished he had not sent. An idea was
born, to create an app that would allow the users freedom as well as protect them by vanishing
the contents shared after few seconds. Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown started the idea with an
initial project called Picaboo; however, this trio did not go so far due the dispute from Brown to
be credited for the idea (Success Story, n.d.). Afterward, Spiegel and Bobby Murphy redesigned
the plan, and created Snapchat, launching the first app version in September 2011 at AppStore
platform (E.,2012). Snapchat has been successful and well known through its new concept about
vanish the messages in 10 seconds (Colao, 2014).

EXAMPLE OF HOW THE APPLICATION HAS EVOLVED

Since 2011, the application has progressed rapidly regarding quality, design, and customer focus
which has furthered its reputation from a dull and repetitive concept to an innovative and
attractive app (Constine, 2015). To gain a better perspective of the evolution of Snapchat, the
analyze of the follows product features will be substantial:

1. The basics features

In the earlier stages, the application started with essential features which Snapchat users were
only able to add text, drawings and lighting effects and features to overlay time and speed
(Constine, 2015).

2. Geofilters
Apart of the early designing process, Snapchat launched the location-based geofilters feature,
which enabled Snapchat users to locate their friends and nearby places, such as stores and
companies, through the phone GPS system (Constine, 2015).

3. Emoji
Further on in crafting Snapchat, the Emoji button was a significant feature introduced that
allowed the user to have the option to use a variety of selection of emojis on a snap (Constine,
2015).

4. Selfie masks
Along in the designing process, Snapchat acquired Looksery start-up, which specialized in live
videos animations. As a result, Snapchat was able to add the effect lenses, which allow users to
add a variety of animated selfie masks to the pictures (Constine, 2015).

5. Advertising-focused Discover
Later on, Snapchat launched a new feature called Discover, which delivered news, live events
and entertainment content to users (Andreeva, 2015). However, within less than one-year,
AppStore, which is one of favorite app online stores, ratings fell from two-and-a-half to one-anda-half stars due to high negative reviews, resulting in the removal of the feature (Business
Insider, 2015).

6. Speed modifiers
Recently, Snapchat introduced the new concept to change the speed of the snaps. Which allows
users to have three different options: Slow-Motion, Fast-Forward and Rewind the videos,
bringing the similar effects as a professional video editor (Constine, 2015).

COMPANY POSITION IN THE MARKET

As reported by the press, Snapchat is suffering from devaluation in the market. In the last quarter
of 2015, Snapchat was hit by the investment fund Fidelity, which slashed its value in 25%
(Fiegerman, 2015). Fidelity did not explain the exact reason for lower the valuation of the
Snapchat; therefore, the media wonders if the lowering is based either on setbacks in their
business models or comparisons to similar publicly traded companies (Fiegerman, 2015).

SUCCESSES
Users as Measure
As shown ahead, the numbers demonstrate the Snapchat success with the users, every second
approximately 8,796 photos are shared on Snapchat, the number is relatively higher on Social
Media in comparison to top three competitors such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp
(CEWE Photoshop, n.d.). According to Snapchat, approximately 4 billion videos are watched
every day, especially popular with the crowd between the 13-34 ages (Andreeva, 2015).

The Value of Vanishing Messages for Companies

The concept of vanish the messages after a few seconds or 24 hours represents a powerful
marketing tool to companies, especially in the fashion world. The idea of vanishing the message
allows companies create contents that are exclusive and inaccessible for all users, bringing the
feeling of exclusivity for target users (Breen, 2015).

The Financial Aspect

Despite the negative valuation, in an accumulated balance, the financial assessment for Snapchat
has been increased in a few a fast pace since the company started. The reference shows that the

company jumped from $120 million to the billions in a few months (Fiegerman, 2015).
Nowadays Snapchat valuation brings the company to the worth $16 billion (Kosoff, 2016).

CHALLENGES
Privacy and Security Policies
It is no secret that Snapchat has faced some obstacles on their journey to success, but a notable
obstacle is the security users face. Snapchat created the concept of vanish the message after the
recipients see the content, which is part of the privacy policy of the company; however, many
third-party application and hackers exploited the security breaches; thus achieving, access to
private contents, in which Snapchat had failed to block. It took Snapchat to hire experts in IT
Infrastructure and Security to establish new security systems (Levy, 2015). Currently, Snapchat
runs a program called Bug Bounty which encourages coders across the globe to discover flaws in
the app and notify the company in exchange for a reward (Levy, 2015).

Satisfying the Users

Another challenge that Snapchat has is the daily need to produce features and contents to try to
make all users happy. For instance, recently, Snapchat faced many complaints from Palestinians
users because Snapchat featured a story only about Tel Aviv, making they fell out of the
spotlight (Andreeva, 2015).

PREDICTION OF FUTURE POTENTIAL

As a result, analyzing all the sources of this report, two are key predictions about the outlook for
the company future, the following are:

1. Snapchat should explore the potential of their marketing skills to grasp clients that are
seeking to promote on their app, through utilization of their stories and features along
with the vanishing concept with brings exclusivity value to the promotion.
2. Snapchat holds a reputation for their open-minded culture and its trajectory in the market
the acceptance of users idea and complains. The trend shows that Snapchat will open
even more its mind, using this approach to make the successful.

CONCLUSION
Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy created Snapchat to shed light on a new way to communicate
with family and friends to make sharing of content more secure and private. In spite of the
hurdles Snapchat has faced, the company has grown considerably since appeared on the market.
Snapchat started in a small room in the Evans father, and now the company has a great office in
Silicon Valley as a result of its success due to Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy persistent
efforts. (Colao, 2012). Snapchat still continues to look for ways to new ideas to improve the
companies culture, customer satisfaction and more importantly, the app.

REFERENCES
Andreeva, N. (2015, July 9). Snapchat offers users glimpse of life in the West Bank. Retrieved
March 17, 2016, from [Link]
Andreeva, N. (2015, October 12). Snapchat To Shut Down Snap Channel, Laying Off Team,
Changing Content Plans. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from
[Link]
Ang, S. (2014, February 13). 11 Things You Didn't Know About Snapchat's Founders. Retrieved
March 13, 2016, from [Link]
Breen, A. (2015, April 3). Now you see it, now you don't: How Snapchat is taking the fashion
world by storm. Retrieved March 17, 2016, from
[Link]
Business Insider. (2015, July 16). People are freaking out over Snapchats new advertisingfocused Discover feature. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from
[Link]
CEWE Photoshop. (n.d.). How big is Snapchat. Retrieved March 11, 2016, from [Link]
Colao, J. J. (2012, November 27). Snapchat: The Biggest No-Revenue Mobile App Since
Instagram. Retrieved March 14, 2016, from

[Link]
Colao, J. J. (2014, January 6). The Inside Story Of Snapchat: The World's Hottest App Or A $3
Billion Disappearing Act? Retrieved March 13, 2016, from
[Link]
Constine, J. (2015, October 28). Snapchat Adds Slow-Mo, Fast-Forward, And Rewind Video
Filters. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from [Link]
E. (2012, May 9). Lets chat. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from [Link]
Fiegerman, S. (2015, November 24). High-flying tech startups like Snapchat and Uber are
getting humbled. Retrieved March 11, 2016, from
[Link]
Kosoff, M. (2016, March 4). Why Snapchats New Valuation Is Better than it Looks. Retrieved
March 17, 2016, from [Link]
Levy, S. (2015, April 2). Snapchats Non-Vanishing Message: You Can Trust Us. Retrieved
March 13, 2016, from [Link]
Success Story. (n.d.). Bobby Murphy Success Story. Retrieved March 14, 2016, from
[Link]

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